


And don't be afraid to receive it back

by WahlBuilder



Series: Scarves and Mittens [4]
Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Fugue Feast, Fugue Feast Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2014-12-16
Packaged: 2018-03-01 18:30:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2783357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WahlBuilder/pseuds/WahlBuilder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Martin and Daud have their secret place in the Tower, and Martin has secrets that he is not sure he is ready to reveal yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And don't be afraid to receive it back

The Tower was full of noises, music and voices, but here they were muffled as if underwater.

Their secret place, deep in the Tower. Martin doubted that even Corvo knew about this place, though he never asked how Daud had found this place the first time. But he had shown it to Martin, a room hid behind endless secret passageways and false walls. It had no windows but during daytime it was lit, through a system of mirrors, Martin thought, though he never cared to check his theory. He needed something uncertain, some mystery in his life, something to forbid his mind from deciphering. At nights the room was full of candle lights that made everything seem warm and fragile.

There had been a couch and a bed and a pair of matching armchairs in the room already when Daud had shown it to Martin, and a bookcase, a chess set, liquor cabinet in one corner, and it all made Martin uneasy, because… Because. Daud had made an effort to make it _their_ place. Because nothing in Martin’s life had ever been _his_. His clothes belonged to the Abbey, his loyalty belonged to the Empire.

His heart was not his, either. Not anymore.

Come to think of it, Daud was not like him, had not been. He had been free, and his freedom was his, he had his Whalers and he had sold his skills to anyone worthy, but never permanently, he had had a whole district, and means, and ways, and money, and time. He had everything, and everything had been his.

And yet, he had accepted to be the Spymaster. And yet, they were here, in this secret room, and in the cabinet there was Martin’s favourite Old Dunwall and Daud’s favourite Serkonos cigars with rich hot flavour, and there was a chess set on a small table between the two armchairs, the game interrupted mid-way, and they had retreated here from the sounds of the Fugue Feast, and it all made Martin’s heart clench.

There was a million of other things, too. Small unsigned notes appearing from nowhere on his office table, when the windows were open, with chess moves or bits of poetry or philosophic quotations. A shadow on the roof when he was on night patrols or late-night walks, ever guarding, ever present. A warm quilt around his shoulders when he woke up at his table, because the matters of the Empire couldn’t wait and the High Overseer was more than a spiritual guide and sometimes he had to work into late hours. Secret smiles, shared across the room full of people with polite but cold expressions on their faces. Innocent bickering and heated discussions of philosophy and matters of faith. Occasional fights and deliberate hits meant to hurt and silent apologies.

Millions, millions of things that cut Martin to shreds.

He was afraid. On lonely nights when he felt restless and anxious and couldn’t stop his mind, he admitted that he was _terrified_. He hadn’t told anything. Not even during the most private and heated moments when they were alone in the world, no, he stopped himself then, bit his tongue, swallowed down all the words and confessions and.

Fears.

Feelings.

He was afraid.

It was vulnerability.

It was stupid.

It was the most important, the most precious thing in his life, and he was afraid, and his hands were trembling when he wanted to touch. To touch this man.

This? This he could not let anyone to take away from him, the only thing that was _his_.

Or was it?

Was it truly his? He was afraid to ask, and he was afraid that someone, something could take it away and he would not be able to recover.

He was afraid, suddenly, of millions of things, and one of them was that maybe, just maybe, Daud knew, he knew it all, he saw it with his piercing eyes, and Martin could not hide anything from them. It made him angry. He had to be invulnerable, unreadable, unbreakable, especially to this man.

He didn’t want to be invulnerable.

It was… nice. To be held. To be praised. To be cherished. When you’ve spent all your life knowing that you were full of sin and unworthy… He never thought it would come to this. This easiness, this warmth. He was still unworthy, of his life, of this man, of any of it, and deep inside he was not sure he had it, truly, really.

It was dangerous. Before — before everything, before this, this warmth and closeness — before it all he was invincible. What could they take away from him? His rank? His work? His life? It all was nothing, and he could start from the very beginning or, well, be dead. But now he had this, the Empire and the Empress, the people of Dunwall, but moreover, he had this man, to protect, to be protected, to go to when he was shattering, to… To.

He didn’t dare to say it even in the privacy of his own mind.

It had started long ago, in another life, when he had been a low-rank Overseer, clawing his way into this, clawing every weakness from himself, and there had been this dangerous man, the most dangerous in the city, on all the Isles, and they had shared pure physicality of danger and bitter, sharp taste of death and knives and gunpowder. But since then it had developed into something more, more complex, more tangled. They still had so many things tangled, Martin’s Strictures, the sigil on Daud’s hand that made Martin’s _bones_ sing when Daud touched him and made Martin’s head spin with jealousy when it was hidden under a glove but still _there_ , a brand, a sign of possession.

Daud shed his gloves, putting them on the small table, and got a bottle of Serkonos spiced wine from the cabinet, candle lights dancing on the deep red liquid inside the bottle, and Martin knew instantly that it meant nostalgia and slow, warm night, and he made a mental note to organise a trip to Serkonos, just for the two of them. He craved to know more about Daud, he told himself it was because he had to know everything about everyone, but it was not true, it was only Daud and Martin’s own obsession. His weakness.

His hands started shaking, and he hid them behind his back, fumbling with a small red box.

It was stupid, so stupid.

‘What is it?’ The husky voice nearly startled him, and he lifted his gaze to find the piercing eyes gazing into him, unclothing, skinning his soul like sharp knives hidden under this red coat.

It was ironic that Daud had kept his coat and his Whalers wore their usual attire, down to their masks on missions, and all those high aristocrats never even knew that the Royal Spymaster was that mysterious assassin that had held Dunwall in terror for years.

He was silent for too long, unblinking, lost in thoughts, and Daud called, his expression a bit worried, ‘Teague?’

‘Don’t call me that,’ he frowned. He didn’t like it, his first name, too vulnerable, too intimate, and it sent electricity down his spine when spoken with this voice, and he couldn’t deny anything to this voice and hoped that Daud didn’t know the power he had over him. Probably he knew it anyway, the bastard.

Daud grinned and poured wine into two glasses, and Martin eyed freely his wide shoulders and back, clad in red. It was a fine sight.

He closed the distance between them, offering the box.

Daud put the bottle on the cabinet, his gaze fixed on the box, brows furrowed in confusion.

‘Here, it’s for you,’ said Martin, ending the awkward silence. ‘Open it.’

Daud did as he was told and took a pair of red mittens from the box. Red and adorned with brown fur near the wrist.

Daud’s astonished face was worth every anxious thought Martin had had.

‘You’ll freeze your fingers off wearing leather gloves these days,’ he said, trying not to laugh openly.

‘And you will be disappointed if I lose my fingers?’ Daud said, suddenly very close, one of his hands on Martin’s back.

Martin’s heart stopped for a moment, warmth surrounding him to the point of suffocating.

‘Yes,’ he whispered, the point of their conversation already lost to him.

Daud smelled of leather and polish oil and dark secrets, of vulnerability turned into unbreakable strength.

‘Don’t you have a sermon to prepare, High Overseer?’ said whiskey voice into his temple.

‘We have hours yet,’ he answered, his heart drumming in his chest, and turned his head to brush lips against stubble on scared chin.

It was not stupid.

It was not a weakness.

He would make sure that nothing would ever take this from him.


End file.
